


need

by umisabaku



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9341495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umisabaku/pseuds/umisabaku
Summary: "After the first gold medal, he feels pride. The second he’s defending a title, the third he’s proving a point. The fourth gold medal he starts to feel bored, and after the fifth, just a curious emptiness he doesn’t know how to analyze."--Victor tries to figure out what he needs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set before/during last year's Grand-Prix reception   
> (spoilers for Episode 10)

After the first gold medal, he feels pride. The second he’s defending a title, the third he’s proving a point. The fourth gold medal he starts to feel bored, and after the fifth, just a curious emptiness he doesn’t know how to analyze.

*

“You’re bored,” Christophe says, and if there’s an edge there it’s only barely perceptible. If there is bitterness, Christophe is too good a friend to let it show.

“I’m not sure that’s it,” Victor says.

“Let me ask you something, Victor, why do you keep skating? Don’t get me wrong—you have to keep skating until I can beat you, I just want to know what _your_ reason is.”

There’s something sort of gloomy about that statement— _does_ he have to keep skating? Until someone beats him? Is that even what he wants? Is that something everyone else wants?

“See, you can’t even answer, can you? Just think about—everyone on this ice has one thing in common: you. We’re here to beat you. But you don’t have a Victor so you’re bored.”

_Everyone has me but me,_ Victor repeats in his mind.

“What you need is a really good fuck.”

“It always comes down to that with you,” Victor says genially.

“Because it’s true! It cures everything. Just anonymous fucking; you and someone else and you’re both just bodies and pleasure and it’s the best thing in the world. It’s _eros_ —the highest form of pleasure anyone can obtain. It’ll help you get over your funk, trust me. Find a random person and screw their brains out.”

Christophe says this like Victor doesn’t know that Christophe has been in a very committed relationship for the past year. Like Victor doesn’t know that Christophe is very much in love, and that he found his inspiration not with anonymous fucking, but with a love that doesn’t leave.

_Maybe that’s what I need,_ Victor thinks idly. _A love that doesn’t leave._

He dismisses the idea almost immediately. Whatever this emptiness is, it’s not something that romance can fill.

*

“Do you think I should keep skating?”

He’s not even sure this is a question he wants an answer to, but it’s a question he feels like he needs to ask, and he has to ask it to the person who has known him the longest.

“Of course you have to keep skating!” Yakov shouts, predictably angry. “What else are you going to do? Retire? Travel? Write your memoirs? Don’t be an idiot. You’re still the best, so you keep skating. What else is there?”

_Right,_ Victor thinks.

_What else is there?_

*

“‘Do you want my autograph?’ God, you’re such a fucking idiot. Get over yourself, asshole, not everything is about you.”

Yuri has been on a tirade for quite some time, and Victor doesn’t understand why. Nor does he particularly care—Yuri is usually on a tirade about one thing or another and Victor has long since concluded it’s just better to smile and nod along when he gets like this.

“Really, Victor, that was poorly done,” Mila says. And if even Mila agrees than surely he must have done something wrong, but it’s too late to figure out what now. “Although, Yuratchka, I’m not sure why _you_ care—weren’t you the one saying, ‘There only needs to be one Yuri?’”

“THERE DOES ONLY NEED TO BE ONE YURI,” Yuri shouts. “THAT IS NOT THE POINT. THE POINT IS THAT HE IS A FUCKING ARROGANT MORON.”

“It is good that Yuri has a rival,” Georgi says off-hand, “Besides you, that is. A more attainable goal, since he’s just starting out.”

_A rival,_ Victor thinks. _It always comes back to that. Is that what I need?_ Not a Victor, but an attainable goal.

But everyone on the ice was a friend and a rival, so he’s not even sure what that means.

*

It’s only at the reception that Victor realizes what it is that the others had been yelling at him for. He sees the dejected Japanese man and it clicks, _Oh, he’s another skater._ No wonder Yuri yelled at him—it was very poor form to offer his autograph to another skater.

Guilt is not something he likes to dwell on—he doesn’t like it, he’s never been particularly good at it, and really all things considered life is just much easier if he’s not too hung up on what other people feel because of him.

But he _does_ feel bad.

He keeps watching the sad man and thinks to himself, _How could I have known?_ He remembers Yuuri Katsuki now, (Yuuri had, all things considered, been a very memorable skater—it’s no wonder he caught Yuri’s eye) and the glasses make him look like a whole different person.

He’ll have to apologize later.

The not-guilt makes him aware of the other man in a way that maybe he wouldn’t be otherwise. It’s strange—but maybe he’s envious of the other man’s devastation. _Maybe that’s what I need—something that will make me cry._ He can’t remember the last time he cried. He can’t even remember the last time he had anything he cared enough to cry about.

*

“Shouldn’t someone make him stop?” Michele says, sounding nervous. “That’s like his fifteenth glass, and I’m not even exaggerating.”

“Pft, Italians,” Mila scoffs. Michele is far too easy to tease, so she purposefully thickens her accent and says, “That’s nothing. We feed that to babies, in Russia. You Italians just don’t know how to hold your liquor.”

“I can hold my liquor just fine!” Michele shouts. (“He _really_ can’t,” his sister whispers at the side), “I’m just saying, if he keeps drinking like that he’s going to die.”

Mila has a point—Russians know how to drink. It’s a point of national pride, really. And maybe that’s why every single Russian in the room is watching Yuuri Katsuki with a sort of hushed respect. It’s not just that he’s on his fifteenth, moving onto his sixteenth, glass of champagne, it’s that it doesn’t look like the liquor is slowing him down any and you don’t have to be Russian to know just how impressive that is.

_Maybe that’s what I need,_ Victor thinks. _Drink until I lose all control._

_Or maybe I just need to lose control._

*

“Victor! After the season is over, my family owns a hotspring, so please come. Be my coach! If I win this dance-off, you’ll be my coach, right?”

_Oh,_ Victor thinks.

_Maybe all I need is you._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I had a couple requests to write Yuri!!! on Ice fic on tumblr (umisabaku.tumblr.com) so this is what I came up with. Kudos and comments are always appreciated =D Thank you for reading!


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